Some witnesses said the gunmen had told Muslims to leave and said non-Muslims would be targeted.
“They came and said: ‘If you are Muslim, stand up. We’ve come to rescue you,” said Elijah Lamau.
He said the Muslims left with their hands up, and then the gunmen shot two people.
However, the man told Mr Howden that an Indian man standing next to him who was asked for the name of the Prophet Muhammad’s mother was shot dead when he was unable to answer.
BBC News – Somalia’s al-Shabab claims Nairobi Westgate Kenya attack
Someone should probably tell Obama that giving weapons to Islamic terrorists and arranging their escape from prisons isn’t such a good idea.
OT but I believe Camera 2’s ship has come in at Lake Huffington:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/NPEO2013/12.jpg
Index of pictures here:
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/NPEO2013/WEBCAM2/ARCHIVE/
Where’s the ship in your first link?
http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/NPEO2013/WEBCAM2/ARCHIVE/npeo_cam2_20130921052510.jpg
this is news – usually “Islamic” terrorists are busy killing Muslims
Don’t put “Islamic” in quotes there; Sunnis kill Shias and vice-versa (for 1400 years now, since the death of Mohammed), just as readily as they do non-Muslims. The point is they do it as Muslims, in the name of Islam. The killing insanity is within Islam itself–it is showing itself to be inescapably a failure as a religion. Even those who kill according to their tribe, against traditional tribal enemies, also kill non-Muslims and believe they are being good jihadi Muslims, exacting justice, no matter who they kill. They are always very much Islamic, without quotes.
no Harry they didn’t do much killing for centuries (Ottoman Empire) and then only started recently, when hit by Modernity.
in the meanwhile the followers of a guy who, as God incarnate, _commanded_ to love one’s enemy, destroyed their civilization with two World Wars.
Really? Again? Need I explain the difference one more time?
no, but for the dead it doesn’t matter does it
RE: – “they didn’t do much killing for centuries”
So untrue. They did much killing for many centuries.
http://www.meforum.org/3492/churches-under-islam
Al-Hakim the mad destroyed 30,000 churches during his tenure alone, prior to the Crusades. It took 70 years before anything was done to address the atrocities
It matters to the living, and to those of us who chose to follow Him who said to love one another, rather than a man who ordered the execution of hundreds of his neighbors with whom he was not at war.
Jesus did not start any wars, killed noone and preached peace, so those who claim to follow Him and murder are not followers. On the other hand Muhammad was a warlord who oversaw raiding parties and mass executions, so Al-Qaeda et al are direct followers of his example, and exemplary Muslims.
I never realized WW I & II were about Jesus.
Do you propose that as SS Leibstandarte, SS Das Reich, and SS Totenkopf rode into Russia, they were chanting, “This is for you, Jesus.” ?!?!
As Soviet troops took Berlin, and raped every woman and girl they could get their hands on, were they yelling, “This is for you, Jesus.” ?!?!
“Allahu Akbar” is frequently shouted by Islamic terrorists. The terrorists very much link themselves to Islam.
omnologos, your dichotomy is absurd.
Sorry guys but history IS history eg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gott_mit_uns
Read also about the Sack of Magdeburg and the Sack of Rome of 1527. Then we have the Troubles in Northern Ireland. And so on and so forth.
20,000 killed to defend Christianity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catharism#Massacre “put to the sword, regardless of rank, age, or sex”
om, I really don’t give a flying damn what history says….
they didn’t have Oprah and Dancing with the Stars back then
Continue citing Wiki, and continue the lie.
Where exactly did Jesus command those people to kill? Whose heads did Jesus cut off?
Omnologos, you cannot possibly be as stupid as you pretend to be on this subject.
Why do we always have to go back to this simple point…people have used religion to kill other people INDEPENDENTLY FROM WHATEVER THE RELIGION’S FOUNDERS HAVE TOLD THEM TO DO.
In other words, the exact words of the founders of any religion ARE FOREIGN TO THE DISCUSSION about which religions are more prone to inspire people to kill or not to kill.
If Wikipedia is not enough reach out for the local library and ask a book about the “Piedmont Easter” of 1655.
These sorry episodes, of which the Christian world has a neverending collection, TELL US NOTHING AT ALL ABOUT CHRISTIANITY PER SE…obviously, say, a crusader killing little children in Aleppo cannot be considered a follower of the most important Commandment (Matthew 22:36-40). OTOH the crusader killing little children in Aleppo was a representative of Christianity as of its time. Go figure.
ANALOGOUSLY it is NOT possible to, say, blame Judaism as inspirer of terrorism because of the King David Hotel massacre, or because some idiot in the Irgun was the first to have the idea of placing bombs at bus stops. And the self-exploding Tamils of Sri-Lanka tell us ZERO about Hinduism.
Likewise, if in contemporary times there are groups of Muslims trying to combat modernity by using weapons, we CANNOT blame that on Islam per se, even if those same people use Muslim symbols and words (most likely, they know of nothing else to rally for). There is always a political, societal, historical component, and (like in the children-killing crusaders) it inevitably trumps whatever precepts the religion provides.
“omnologos says:
Why do we always have to go back to this simple point…people have used religion to kill other people…”
People use many excuses to kill, and people lie.
How is it you cannot see the difference between Muhammad and Jesus? Are you rally THAT STUPID?
Has one of Obama’s sons been pounding your head into the pavement.
sorry Gator but I have run out of arguments, especially because you haven’t replied to any of them. I presume the realization that people have killed in the name of a guy who said “Thou shalt not kill’ has not reached you as yet. Perhaps, one day.
gator, please cut back on the trash talk.,
James Hansen says mankind is killing the planet. True or false?
Look up liar, or maybe hypocrite for those you call Christian on this thread.
Muhammad was a MURDERER.
Jesus was NOT.
I’m restraining myself, don’t make me call you the names you are richly earning on this topic, my friend.
Omnologos I would make the observation that Jesus was essentially a beatnik pacifist. Mohammed was a warlord. That does tend to colour one’s viewpoints over the long haul.
I wish that were true, Will. But what do we know, the largest mass murders in the history of the world (both in absolute terms and in percentage to the local population) have been committed in the name of a bearded German philosopher who had some ideas on how to make people happier.
I’m not being boastful Steven, I am merely pointing out that ‘Christians’ who murder or use Christianity as an excuse, are not followers of Christ. OTH, Muslims who do, are merely following the example of their religion’s founder. I cannot believe this is difficult for any sentient being to comprehend. I can claim to be anything, but my actions define me.
I am no saint, but I know the difference between the examples given by Jesus and Muhammad, and cannot believe someone as intelligent as my friend omnologos doesn’t.
For him, it’s a spectacular idea!
If he can drop Assad, the countries northern secular & Christian folks can be snuffed with American made weapons, which will be an extra bonus…
Not long before these terrorists have sufficient hold in western countries to will use their embedded executioners to slaughter Christians and their like. Peace is all they profess
Infiltrate then decimate
Disarm the locals so they can’t defend themselves first. That’s what has happened in Australia and Europe and is coming to a US town near you.
Who to believe?
Keep out, or……………………………………. support the West’s sworn enemies ie Al Qaeda and associates – it’s a no brainer for Barrack and John [and Dave Cameron].
Link.
Shia v Sunni, not our fight.
Kenya, Chicago and DC, I don’t get the connection. 😉
And again…
“More than 60 people have been killed in a double suicide bomb attack on a church in northwest Pakistan, officials say.
Another 120 people were wounded when the two bombers blew themselves up as worshippers left the church in Peshawar city, which had been offering a free meal of rice.”
http://news.sky.com/story/1144982/pakistan-suicide-bombing-at-peshawar-church
As I said it’s time to stop because I have addressed the criticism about what we presume of Jesus and Mohammed, but no answer has been forthcoming on my argument.
You have completely missed my point. Hitler took over the churches, and yet was an atheist. True ‘followers’ follow, and pretenders lie. Muhammad was a murderer, and Jesus was not. I am not presuming a thing.
I truly and most honestly do not understand how you missed this point.
I have argued with examples across history and multiple cultures from all over the world, that the willingness to kill is independent from the behavior of the religion’s founder. i have written three or four comments about that already, even extended it to include Marxism, and still you’re stuck at square one with your own opinion on how to classify Muhammad. Oh well. Somebody’s wrong on the internet and all that.
You still don’t get it. Founders matter.
It’s a good title, for an argument. Let’s see the rest?
You have seen it, Jesus killed nobody.
That’s my point. If even Jesus, who killed nobody, and actually told people to love each other, ended up being carried around in crosses by mass killers convinced they were impaling people for the good of Christianity, it seems obvious that founders don’t matter.
Did Muhammad order executions?
Did Jesus?
Did Marx order to starve 40 million Chinese? Actually…did Marx starve anybody in his whole life?
No, Jesus did not.
Did Muhammad order executions? Answer the question.
No. It’s like asking me to disprove catastrophic AGW by talking of Katrina. Katrina happened, so what? That is not the point.
To prove that founders matter, you need to prove that founders matter. To disprove it, I need to provide examples of founders who don’t matter. And I did.
Hand waving not accepted.
Did, or did not Muhammad order executions? (Hint: Even Muslims know the answer)
I see. Was Katrina a cat 5 or was it not? It was.
If your argument rests on me answering a pointless question, you have no argument.
Only pointless to you.
We determined Jesus was anti murder.
PS – God bless you.
And you too. We have determined that Christians killed despite Jesus’ stance. IOW we have determined that founders don’t matter, when people feel the urge to kill.
This is why founders matter. If we follow Jesus’ example, we murder nobody. If we follow Muhammad’s example, we murder those who disagree with us.
So simple, even a caveman can understand it.
Good night my friend.
uh Om, history be damned…..Christians are not acting like savages that just crawled out of the tree right now in the present
I am sure they will again, at some point ;(
yeah, I can just see a bunch of Christians doing those things
Just recently, doctors were being shot at abortion clinics?
There have been more Islamic terror killings this week than during the entire history of the Irish Republican Army.
“More people are killed by Islamists each year than in all 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition combined”
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
Just recently, doctors were being shot at abortion clinics?
====
yep, and they cut their heads off and ate them like some kind of bush monkeys
As I said it’s time to stop because I have addressed the criticism about what we presume of Jesus and Mohammed, but no answer has been forthcoming on my argument.
=====
om, it’s because using your “logic”…..slavery should excused today, because it was done in the past
uh? am not excusing anybody. The opposite, in truth. Homicidal Christians won’t find refuge in their founder’s good deeds.
‘Christians’ who murder are not followers of Christ.
Muslims who murder are followers of Muhammad.
What part of that do you not get?
uh? am not excusing anybody
=====
bullcrap…that’s all you’ve done is make excuses
You obviously have a dog in this fight
1. You don’t terrorize anybody with a single attack. Terrorists in fact use bombs (or planes) and in multiple co-ordinated actions happening at the same time or at a certain rate, and/or attack people that cannot possibly expect anything. In Kenya, with Kenyan troops in Somalia, a single attack against a shopping mall is a military operation.
If there will be a wave of attacks against malls, that will be more like terrorism.
2. If a follower of Muhammad has to murder people to remain as such, then hundreds of millions of Muslims must be wrong.
3. Nothing I have written can be interpreted as justifying any act of violence.
4. I have seen these discourses built up against Christianity in the past. Now they are used against Muslims, and before WWII it was common (in Europe) to use them against Jews. I know what’s at the end of the tunnel, and that’s persecution against anybody holding any Faith. It happened already http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_…
So I shan’t cooperate to the disparagement of any religion, thank you.
Islam is not a religion. It is a cult founded by a murderer. I once believed the great lie too, that Islam was the same as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, etc… But that is a lie. You cannot found something holy on someone unholy.
Get over it.
Does your planet have an atmosphere?………
OM I can’t believe all the excuses you’ve come up with……
Rationalization is the second most power human instinct. Just gotta wonder why rationalize murder on a daily basis with no end in sight?
omnologos says:
September 23, 2013 at 10:29 pm
Why do we always have to go back to this simple point…people have used religion to kill other people INDEPENDENTLY FROM WHATEVER THE RELIGION’S FOUNDERS HAVE TOLD THEM TO DO.
. . . .
Likewise, if in contemporary times there are groups of Muslims trying to combat modernity by using weapons, we CANNOT blame that on Islam per se, even if those same people use Muslim symbols and words (most likely, they know of nothing else to rally for). There is always a political, societal, historical component, and (like in the children-killing crusaders) it inevitably trumps whatever precepts the religion provides.
====================================================================
The problem is, Islamic leaders are dead silent about Islamic terrorists. Ipso facto, terrorists have tacit approval to use Muslim symbols and words. Until Islamic leaders speak out, your argument is hollow.
What Islamic leaders have spoken out against the Kenya attack? Well, then, they approve and are doing nothing to prevent recurrence. They might even be happy about it!
Since we’re in topic…the Kenya attack was no “terrorism”. It is a direct military response to Kenya’s involvement in Somalia.
The fact that civilians were the victims doesn’t make it automatically “terrorism” (otherwise all those drones…).
It is terrorism when the aim is to terrorize the civilian population for political reasons. In Kenya the aim is to push the Government to get the troops out of Somalia, where the “al-Shabaab” is losing the war.
Killing people in a mall is not a “direct military response.” It is a crime against humanity. It is barbaric. It so 7th century.
I didn’t say it’s justified. I only said it’s not “terrorism”.
It is terrorism when the aim is to terrorize the civilian population for political reasons. In Kenya the aim is to push the Government to get the troops out of Somalia, where the “al-Shabaab” is losing the war.
====
are you on something?
Let me help you with that one….
In Kenya the aim is to terrorize the civilian population to make them put pressure on the government to get the troops out of Somalia…
That’s terrorism!
RE: omnologos – “I didn’t say it’s justified. I only said it’s not terrorism.”
The terrorists themselves disagree with you
http://www.utexas.edu/law/journals/tlr/sources/Issue%2089.4/Huq%20Sources/fn220.post.pdf
You are willfully uninformed or have tremendous blinders. Islam’s own historians provide the best documention of their atrocities. Christianity spread despite persecution of Christians by those around them. Islam spread through persecution of everyone by Muslims as they .
Christ himself states those who work iniquity were never his to begin with. “And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.”
1. i am not “rationalizing” anything. The Kenyan mall attack is a clear war atrocity. Unfortunately modern warfare is evolving towards having fewer military casualties and massive civilian ones (compare WWI to WWII, and see the popularity of the use of drones in populated areas increase just as politicians try to promise never again to put “boots on the ground”, ie combat troops in harm’s way). This can’t be good.
2. As in Benghazi, we must be careful not to be taken advantage by those too quick to say the word “terrorism!” for their own gain. It is simply too easy to label everything and anything “terrorism”, something against which the only possible response is to rally around the Government, renounce yet more civil liberties, etc.
3. in fact if you read the NY Times you will find at the same time talks of al-Shabaab losing ground in Somalia and somehow expanding its reach in the region. Obviously the two things can’t happen at the same time. However, if we get somehow convinced that crazied Somali teenagers can explode the local corner store at will in rural Alaska, there will come the NSA putting sensors and listening devices into everything including our waste pipes.
4. There is a war going on in Somalia for 22 years. Untold numbers of civilians have been killed and are still being killed. Hardened by a million atrocities, one faction called al-Shabaab has committed another atrocity, this time in Kenya, whose Government is however participant in the same war. This makes the mall attack an episode of the Somali war, wholly different from the situations in Madrid, New York City and Washington, D.C., and London. And Bali.
5. The fact that al-Shabaab is religion-based is easily understood considering those people have nothing else to rally for, now that Communism has collapsed, apart from tribal allegiance…but in the case of tribal allegiance, numbers and resources will be forever limited (by the size of the tribe). This is why, like in Afghanistan, a prolonged civil war ends up with the prevalence of religion-based movements, the only ones capable to cross the tribal boundaries and manage enough resources to take the rest of the country under their control. That’s what happened in Russia and then in China, where movements based around the “religion” of Communism once again took advantage of civil wars and scooped up the whole of the country. That’s what happened in the formation of Saudi Arabia too.
There is no point in discussing each other’s opinion of Islam. If you’re convinced it’s “evil”, get ready for when they will tell you every other religion is “evil” too, using your own arguments. You’ve been warned.
Reserve your invectives for a better cause.
are you out of your tree again….I’m sick and tired of Christians and Jews being called evil and we’re supposed to be “tolerant” of some other religion because you say it happened in the past.
What do you mean “get ready” and “be warned”….have you been living under some rock? There has been a Muslim war against Christians for too long.
The numbers say otherwise. The current Islamic/pan-Arab civil war has mostly seen Islamists killing Muslims. This too is a pattern all too common: both Stalin and Mao mostly killed Communists, and the Catholic Church busied itself with the killing of Roman Catholics.
On a grander historical scale, Modernity and in particular American Culture has been taking over for some time the whole world including all Arab/Muslim cultures. The “fundamentalist” furore is a very modern by-product of that, and can’t last more than a generation or two.
Even Communism lasted “only’ 70 years and I do remember all the opining in the mid-1980s on why Communism had never been on the retreat…
and Africans used to keep slaves…
….what’s your point
There you go with that history crap again….
You are making the case for reparation
…either that or you are excusing Muslims by saying they are still ignorant savages
I really cannot fathom how to explain it for the millionth time. The fact that something bad was done in the past doesn’t make it less bad, and doesn’t justify it in any way if it happens again.
The historical examples are useful to understand if a particular phenomenon is “typical” of Islam, or happens unfortunately at various points in history in diverse cultures and geographical regions. In the latter case, it cannot be attributed to “Islam” and therefore cannot be used to fantasize how hundreds of millions of people are closet homicidal cannibals.
Don’t make me start with all the invented stories about Jews eating little babies, another shameful page in the history of Christianity. Those stories too were widely circulated and convinced many that Jews were closet homicidal cannibals as well.
om, go back and read everything you’ve said…
…you are still using history to say an entire group of people should be excused from their current behavior today….because they are stuck in some time warp and their culture has not advanced
Either that, or it sounds like you are saying since Johnny down the street did it years ago, it’s ok for you to do it today…..
Christians have not slaughtered anyone today….Jews have not eaten any babies today
What would a sane person think if Christians or Jews (in mass) were cutting people’s heads off today? If Christians (in mass) were shooting up malls, blowing up trains and subways, blowing up night clubs, and telling the Christians and Jews to get out today?
Now stop the crap….you know exactly what people would be saying
“…the Kenya attack was no “terrorism”. It is a direct military response to Kenya’s involvement in Somalia.”
Strange that during a non-terroristic attack, they let members of a single religion go.
An attack specifically targeted at a civilian group intended to invoke terror is by any sane definition an act of terrorism.
no. “terror” implies having people scared it can happen to them anytime anywhere. It is a wave of bombings, or a coordinated series of attacks, like what al-Shabaab did in Uganda in 2010. It’s car bombs in Iraqi markets.
Was Dresden terrorism, or Sherman’s campaign? Awful episodes, but obviously episodes in a war.
You seem to be applying nonsense conditions to a commonly understood word. The Bali Bombing was a terrorist attack and it was a one off event. 911 was also a one off terrorist attack on New York.
BTW, Dresden does meet the condition of a terrorist attack as it was targeted at a civil population. There is nothing new about states engaging in terrorism. Sherman’s campaign was not, as it was targeted primarily at strategic and military targets.
Will -you are confusing the target of the attack with the means and goal of it. The Blitz was not a terrorist action, despite Coventry.
The Bali and 911 attacks involved unsuspecting population in countries not at war against the organization of the perpetrators.
The blitz was clearly an action of state terrorism, in one sense in its purest form. So was Hiroshima (to the Japanese). Just because a terrorist act doesn’t meet your idiosyncratic conditions doesn’t mean it’s not terrorism by sensible definition.
Latitude – I will stop right now. I have repeated and repeated and repeated that I do not justify, rationalize, or excuse any atrocity and any killing, and you’re still writing that I do (without quoting any passage in which I would).
Since we can only talk via words written over the internet if I write something and you accuse me of writing the opposite there is no way we can communicate on this topic.
Your obsession with “today” makes also every religion dangerously immanent, as if it only mattered what is happening right now. This is the definition of fashion and the complete opposite of what a religion should be. God is obviously above and outside the behavior of the faithful “right now”.
om, I love you dearly…you know that…and you’re ignoring the fact that I’m trying to tell you, you are using history to justify something that is happening today
I’m not accusing you of writing the opposite…that’s exactly what you are saying
” I have repeated and repeated and repeated that I do not justify, rationalize, or excuse any atrocity and any killing,”
…and you keep giving examples/history of how other religions have done it, which is the impresson
destroyed their civilization with two World Wars. Sorry guys but history IS history 20,000 killed to defend Christianity “Piedmont Easter” of 1655 the largest mass murders in the history of the world I have argued with examples across history ended up being carried around in crosses by mass killers Did Marx order to starve 40 million Chinese I need to provide examples We have determined that Christians killed Just recently, doctors were being shot at abortion clinics It happened already That’s what happened in Russia and then in China both Stalin and Mao mostly killed Communists, and the Catholic Church busied itself with the killing of Roman Catholics.
If there is a thread about Charles Manson and somebody says there’s been others just as bad or even worse, is that a way of ‘justifying’ or ‘excusing’ Manson? Of course not.
om, you said you didn’t…
….I just showed you, you did
this is all you:
history IS history
in the history of the world
examples across history
I need to provide examples
It happened already
That’s what happened
Latitude – if showing examples from history would have meant “to condone” or “to justify’, we would only be able to condemn what’s totally “unprecedented”. Are you channelling Gore or what 😉
Gator – until Modernity arrived (around the times of WWI, and then WWII followed by independence for many new States), there were large Jewish communities all over the Middle East. Now, if Islam really commanded its followers to kill Jews (and Christians), how on Earth did those communities manage to start and then thrive? Was there any major new Islamic Revelation around 100 years ago, that made it all change??
I repeat, WTF are you on? Whatever it is, cease.
I did an internet search for “islamic leaders comdemn kenya mall attack.” To my surprise, I found that a group of Somalis in MINNESOTA, USA, condemn the attack. Some local Kenyan mosques did, as well. Good on them.
The billion other Muslims? Crickets.
Omnologos, your argument that the contents of an ideology is largely irrelevant in terms of how its believers behave strikes me as indefensible. Your example using Marx actually works against your claims because his ideology preached (violent) revolution. There are exceptions to every rule of course, but in order to defend your position you have to argue the rule not the exception.
we were discussing about a “founder’s effect” that I’ve shown does not exist
You’ve shown no such thing as your examples are flawed for various reasons, I.e., contradict your stated claim, focus on exceptions rather than rules, etc.
Let’s focus on one appallingly bad argument. Marx was a man if peace because he never hurt a fly. Completely ignoring the fact that his writings preached violent class struggle.
WTF are you on?
Founder’s effect non-existent? That’s a laugh. Tell that to Coptic Christians in Egypt, while some still exist. Tell that to the Jews, who are attacked in every Muslim nation. Where, if not Muhammad, do these murderous Jihadis get their inspiration?
Not all cultures are equal. Get over it. Muhammad was an opportunistic murderous warlord, and as an example to his followers, that has a dramatic effect. Please guide me to the web site that details daily attacks on innocent civilians in the name of Christ.
I do not condemn all Muslims, but they are misguided if they believe Muhammad is someone whom they should emulate. Sadly, most of them are raised believing that he was a prophet of God.
Gator come on please…if you don’t want to hear about History, just say so. Are we discussing religions or the news???
Nations at war is not the same as a religious group attacking a shopping mall. Hiroshima, Dresden, and the South were attacked to weaken infrastructure and destroy the will to fight, of nations in a declared war. What nation is Al-Shabab, and when did they declare war on Kenya? I lived in Germany, and the Germans understood the Dresden attack was due to Hitler’s aggression, and they hated him, not the US.
Enough with the revisionist history.
The message is clear: killing non-muslims is okay.
Obviously from the point of view of a member of al-Shabaab they were building up their fiefdom with dreams of getting the whole of Somalia when those Kenyan troops came in and ruined the party, by attacking militarily. A military response by al-Shabaab was not something unimaginable, given the border shared by Kenya and Somalia.
In the case of Bali, or 9/11, or 7/7 in London, those were completely out of the blue.
Who is the inspiration for these Jihadi attacks?
who inspired Richard Lionheart to kill all the inhabitants of Aleppo? who inspired the Landsknecht to desecrate almost every Church in Rome?
You seem to have some peculiar power in your ability to see this unbroken chain of evilhood between the cartoonish Mohammad you depict, and these murderous ‘Islamist’ whose violence has only become visible in the last 30 years or so.
You have a real problem with reality. Jesus did not inspire warfare.
Who is the inspiration for these Jihadi attacks?
Yes I have understood it already. You define reality, you decide what is relevant among all the history of humanity, you attach categories to “Jesus” and “Muhammad” and I am only supposed to say “yes you’re absolutely right”.
Who is the inspiration for these Jihadi attacks?
I shall retire now, content of having found a friend in Michel de Montaigne, writing almost 500 years ago:
I am not so concerned that we should remark on the barbaric horror of such a deed [cannibalism of war prisoners by Native South Americans], but that, while we quite rightly judge their faults, we are blind to our own. I think it is more barbaric to eat a man alive than to eat him dead, to tear apart through torture and pain a living body which can still feel, or to burn it alive by bits, to let it be gnawed and chewed by dogs or pigs (as we have no only read, but seen, in recent times, not against old enemies but among neighbors and fellow-citizens, and–what is worse–under the pretext of piety and religion. Better to roast and eat him after he is dead.
It contains everything I wanted to say.
Who is the inspiration for these Jihadi attacks?
I guess you just can’t handle the truth.
Good night my friend, may God bless you.
Who is the inspiration for these Jihadi attacks?
I think that’s a good and fair question om…..
No. It’s badly constructed. A better question might be…”who does Gator think is the inspiration for the Jihadi attacks?“. We know the answer to that. But then we’d have to assume that Gator has some special knowledge on the whole of Islamic thinking across several centuries. It’s not likely: for example, that same inspiration would have had to remain asleep for many many years, and somehow reappear in the middle of the 1970s.
Another better version of the question could also be…”how do the attackers justify their abominable actions?“. We know the answer to that too. OTOH similar justifications popped up after the Massacre of St Bartholomew, or during the murderous times of Bloody Mary, but it is now very clear there were other things at play than piety and devotion. So we should be wary of people claiming it was their religion that made them do it (please don’t confuse this statement with the general fact that strong believers in any faith are capable of anything – as shown in the 10:10 video).
IMHO the real inspiration for these Jihadi attacks is the combination of a total collapse of a society in the face of a global, American-based culture that is taking over everything in sight PLUS the availability of money in the very same area, the Arabian peninsula.
When they founded Saudi Arabia they thought they had the biggest Holy Place in the world. They know they haven’t, because American lifestyle is liked everywhere. And so now they blame America for their own problems. Cue 9/11 and copycats wherever possible, Somalia included.
And now it’s 1:19AM, good night to all.
It is a very simple question.
Who is the inspiration for these Jihadi attacks?
Now stop attacking me, ad hominems are a sign of zero facts.
AND THE CROWD GOES WILD!!!!!!!!
… a straight 10, 10, 10 ,10 ,10
yes, ladies and gentlemen you just witnessed the most perfectly executed duck and dodge in the history of the games!!!!!!!
well guys i have been writing a lot on this thread, making a ton of examples from history and quoting one of the finest minds that ever graced this planet. From you it’s just a couple of words that have meaning only under the assumption you’re completely right. Not sure what kind of way of bringing forward an argument that is.
In today’s IHT I meanwhile have found some further explanation. As I said these “Islamic terrorists” usually busy themselves killing other Muslims. I haven’t done the math but Muslims must be the victims in 90%+ of the case. This is perfectly explained by the need to cleanse out their main “enemies”, people of Islamic faith that abhor violence.
So why the change of tactics in Kenya? Turns out even Osama had criticized al-Shabaab for being too brutal and too murderous too often against too many Muslims (the vast majority of the Somali people). The blatant singling out of Muslims in Kenya for safety becomes then not a sign of religious piety, but an atrocious political/PR maneuvre to “demonstrate” al-Shabaab isn’t against Muslims.
The inspiration of the attack in Kenya is therefore the same inspiration that was at work for the Crusades, or for the impaling of innocent Waldensians: a debased political calculus.
That’s why the Founder’s Effect does not exist. People aren’t sent to fight for or against some ancient guy: they are sent to fight (armed, well-fed, filled up with propaganda, etc etc) by crazied power-hungry brutal leaders who take advantage of whatever they’ve got: in Medieval Italy, they took advantage of Roman Catholicism; in Sri Lanka at the time of the Tamil Tigers, they took advantage of a mix of ethnicity and Hinduism; in the USSR, they took advantage of Czar-style allegiance to power together with the new religion of Communism.
In Somalia there isn’t Roman Catholicism, or Hinduism, or Communism to make use of: of course then, the power-hungry will take advantage of Islam.
Truth needs no hand waving. Muhammad did not inspire the crusades, and neither did Jesus.
Quit being a denier, you are ruining your credibility.
There you go, a few words that state without explaining and make Truth the unargued. As I said…
You have given examples of responses to Muslim aggression, acts of nations and men, and ignored the inspiration behind the Jihadi attacks, as well as the teachings of Jesus.
It is not necessary for me to cherry pick attacks.
I once told you that you impressed me with some of the most lucid comments on this site. And that holds true, until we hit the subject of overt and repeated aggression by Muslims in the name of God. They are simply following the example of Muhammad, as can be plainly seen, if you study the life of Muhammad.
Hitler used the church too, and as anyone who has bothered to study the facts knows, he was most definitely not a Christian. Hitler was a believer in the occult and used German Christians by pretending to be like them. When I lived in Germany, my best friend and I used metal detectors to locate artifacts on our base, we found Nazi belt buckles that read, “Gott Mitt Uns”. I wondered at this until I studied Hitler’s tactic of assuming the church. Any evil leader will pretend to be one of us to assume control.
The 19 hijackers were not pretending to follow Muhammad, they were true to the tactics and methods of him.
Who is the inspiration of the Jihadi attacks? Muhammad or Jesus? When did Jesus tell us to murder?
I have just shown you that a group like al-Shabaab, namely ready to kill and die to defend and propagate Islam, has shown no qualms in killing Muslims when it was convenient, and in pretend to be killing only non-Muslims when it was differently convenient.
I fail to fathom how it could be argued that Muhammad inspired them in killing Muslims in the first place (thousands of them). So somehow this “inspiration” you keep focusing on, was turned off then, and it is turned on now.
This sounds absurd (a religious tap?).
Following Ockham, it is vastly more likely that Muhammad has inspired zero in al-Shabaab, and in particular has nothing to do with their decision to kill this or that person. They will go back to kill anybody the dead of whom is more convenient to them, and when that happens, they will consult their political aims, and not the Quran.
Who said anything about the victims?
Who is the inspiration of the Jihadi attacks? Muhammad or Jesus? When did Jesus tell us to murder?
You need first to rebuild the connection between Muhammad and the changing tactics of al-Shabaab, a connection I just demolished.
imagine having some atheist argue that Christianity is inherently evil because Christians burned heretics. It would only make sense if a direct connection were possible between the teachings of Christ (and the rest of the New Testament) and the burning of heretics.
Likewise if, whatever Muhammad said or did, al-Shabaab changes their target according to PR considerations, there is no connection between Muhammad and al-Shabaab’s tactics, and it becomes logically impossible to say that the former inspired the latter.
I am not entering into the minutiae of what Muhammad said or did, mostly because it does not matter _since_ there is no connection. Likewise Karl Marx in all his dreams of proletary struggle never envisaged Mao Tse-Dong killing millions of them as part of Marxist ideology. It doesn’t make sense to say that it’s Marx’s fault or “inspiration”.
Who is the inspiration of the Jihadi attacks? Muhammad or Jesus? When did Jesus tell us to murder?
Gator – your argument can be summarized as “I am right, you must agree right now!”. I can duly note this novel form of wisdom, assuming you’ve passed teenagerhood.
Who is the inspiration for these Jihadi attacks?
No one if Muhammad were alive today he would discourage such violent and horrific acts of false Muslims. Real Muslims only kill if absolutely necessary like everyone else. These aren’t Muslims they ARE TERRIBLY MISGUIDED AND WRONG IDIOTS.
Who are not Muslim discussion closed
I must admit I overreacted but they are clearly not Muslims. The entire religion is based around maintaining peace, guiding people, and trying to remain a good hardworking Muslim. Muslims are supposed to donate to charity (zakat). If the founder of Islam was a murderer than why on earth would he follow a religion who helps the poor, stays clean, and fasts during he month of Ramadan just to know what it feels to be a poor person who cant afford food all the time. Which therefore renders any argument on this useless. This is a pretty sensitive topic. My advice is word what you say carefully so not to offend anyone.
How could someone so bored be so stupid. Mohammad personally cut the heads off of Jews. Mohammad was a warrior who felt rules were for the little people.
I was once bored, and studied Mohammad and his Koran, because I was also curious. I too felt that Islam was one of the ‘great religions’ of the world, but discovered that the jihadis are the true followers of Mohammad, murdering their way through life.